On August 29, at a first press conference after tooking oath as a new federal senator for the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), the ex-commander of Olinalá’s community police, Guerrero, Nestora Salgado, announced the start of a campaign for the freedom of all the political prisoners in the country. She declared that there are currently 500 of them in Guerrero, although the first thing that is required is to carry out a national diagnosis: “The intention is to make a mapping to integrate prisoners of conscience and social activists, as is the case of the Indigenous Dominga “N”, originally from Jalisco, who has been imprisoned for 15 years for various crimes. “

Having been imprisoned, it is not surprising that Salgado has stated that the fight for the freedom of political prisoners is the main axis of her legislative agenda: “We can not allow our comrades who fight for life to remain imprisoned.” “Justice in Mexico has been negotiated and for people who do not have money, they have no way to pay for it, but now that we have this voice it will sound stronger in the Senate in defense of them, we will make sure that it is taken into account”, she emphasized.

She was accompanied by inhabitants of San Pedro Tlanixco, municipality of Tenango del Valle, who demand the release of their family members, political prisoners for defending land and water, and by Professor Alberto Patishtan, from the El Bosque community in Chiapas, who was also Political prisoner and released through pardon in 2013.

Senator Salgado García announced that she is studying what initiatives could be promoted from the Upper House to help in this fight.

On 3 September, Tita Radilla, Martha Obeso, Norma Mesino, Sofía Méndoza, and Julia Alonso, being social activists from different regions of Guerrero state, visited the political prisoner Nestora Salgado, coordinator of the Communal Police in Olinalá, Guerrero. The social activists explained that “we came to visit Nestora to encourage her and tell her that we are struggling for her liberty.” The five women mobilized themselves in Mexico City to express their solidarity with Nestora Salgado, who is currently incarcerated in the Xochimilco prison. At the end of their visit, they affirmed that “she continues to be strong.” A representative from the Free Nestora Committee that is operating in Mexico City also visited, announcing that a tour in Guerrero would soon be launched. This visit forms part of the struggle against impunity that is lived in Guerrero, the activists added. Nestora Salgado undertook a hunger strike on 26 August 2015, 11 months after the forcible disappearance of the 43 student-teachers from Ayotzinapa. She has been imprisoned for two years.

Nestora Salgado, the leader of the communal police in Guerrero who has been imprisoned since August 2013 and was transferred to the Tepepan prison on 29 May, announced that starting on 26 August she will begin a hunger strike lasting 43 days in length to express her solidarity with the disappeared students from Ayotzinapa. “This is a struggle for justice and respect toward the communal police who have not done more than the labor which the State has not been willing to guarantee: that is to say, our security.”

Two years after her imprisonment, Nestora Salgado calls on the citizenry to join the cause of liberty for political prisoners and the presentation with life of the disappeared.

On 21 August, the spokesperson for the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP), Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz, was released after having been incarcerated for fourteen months. He had been arrested on 17 June 2014 on the charge of having participated together with eight other opponents to the La Parota dam project in a shootout and attempted murder.

The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, which provides him counsel, reiterated in this sense that “the case of Marco Antonio Suástegui is a clear example of how the ministerial power strives to fabricate charges and act swiftly to criminalize him. This they have done also with Nestora Salgado, Gonzalo Molina, Arturo Campos, and the communal police of Ayutla.”

On various occasions after his release, Marco Antonio Suástegui expressed his gratitude for the support he received, even though “justice is still pending.” He also affirmed that the struggle against the La Parota dam will continue, and he pronounced himself before the media in favor of the release of all political prisoners: “We will struggle for Nestora, Gonzalo, Arturo, and all those communal guardians who are unjustly imprisoned. I believe that CECOP has three objectives at this time. The first is the definitive cancellation of the La Parota dam, the second to request release of political prisoners, and the third to promote development in our communities.”

On 17 July, social collectives, artists, and activists protested at a political-cultural event in favor of the release of Nestora Salgado, commander of the Communal Police of Olinalá, Guerrero, who has been imprisoned for two years now. The event was held outside the Tetepan Center for Social Reinsertion, as organized by the “Women to Free Nestora” committee. As part of this activity, the concert “Let us open paths for liberation” was held, with the participation of several female rappers. Through music and rhythms, they pronounced themselves in favor of the release of Nestora, and against the criminalization of social struggles.

During the action, an audio message from Nestora was played, wherein she expressed gratitude for the support evinced at the action. In this way, she also called on the Guerrero state congress to support the Law on Amnesty, and she called on the Secretary for Governance and the United Nations High Commissioner in Mexico to follow her case. She stressed that she “wants to show that this incarceration is unjust. I have been imprisoned on false charges, these being crimes I never committed.” Lastly, she called on Mexican society to unite efforts to promote the liberty of political prisoners: “Only with your support will our freedom be assured.”

Nestora Salgado García, the ex-commander from the Communal Police (PC) of Olinalá, has been told by the Guerrero State Attorney General that she now faces three additional charges, including kidnapping, robbery, and homicide. Her attorney, Sandino Rivero, reported that her new accusers are unknown, and that the identity of the presumed murder victims is also unknown. The charges are still informal, but they will soon be applied against her. Furthermore, he adds that these three new charges were not detailed in her original arrest on 21 August 2013, nearly two years ago. According to CIMAC News, the defense counsel’s analysis is that the State Attorney “had been keeping” these other charges, thus indicating that its office would not desist, despite the calls made by the Guerrero State Governor, Rogelio Ortega.

The PC ex-commander has been imprisoned on three charges of kidnapping of people who were being re-educated at the Justice House in El Paraíso. She is presently being held in the Center for Social Readaptation in Tepepan, where she had been transferred after a hunger-strike that lasted 31 days, one she undertook to demand her transfer and that of her PC comrades who are also imprisoned. Until 29 May, she had been held in the high-security prison in Tepic, Nayarit, 1,100 kilometers from her land of origin.

According to the “Sin Embargo” media, beyond having raised consciousness about irregularities in the health center and promoting unions in Olinalá to re-educational campaigns, Salgado revealed that, before her arrest, she had shown several officials videos evidencing the rapes of children. These authorities then went to an Admiral of the Navy, a General from the Secretary for National Defense (SEDENA), and the then-governor, Ángel Aguirre Rivero, who then committed himself to referring the matter to the Federal Attorney General (PGR), but in the end nothing was investigated. Nestora holds that she surely disturbed powerful interests with her denunciations of these cases of the rapes of children, with this being the actual reason she has been imprisoned.

In an interview with Proceso, she adds that “they are hurt that I have told them that the system is corrupt; they are trying to bury my voice, which was heard.” She assures that the system has failed everyone. “If I am released, as I hope I will (it must be this way), or if I must give my life for this struggle, I will do it. I will not be silent; I am not afraid. I am someone who believes in the systematic re-education of the people (of the CRAC), and I believe we can indeed change many things—not just in Guerrero, but throughout the country.”

After 17 months of solitary confinement in the federal prison of Tepic, Nayarit, Nestora Salgado was transferred on 29 May to the Femenil Center for Social Readaptation “Tepepan” in Mexico City.

The coordinator of the Communal Police (PC) of Olinalá was arrested on 21 August 2013, accused of kidnapping. After numerous attempts to have her released, on 5 May she undertook a hunger strike and refused to consume liquids for 5 days.

From the Medical Tower of the prison, where Nestora is attempting to recover her physical and menatl health, she declared in an interview with La Jornada: “I do not request amnesty. Everyone knows I am a political prisoner, that I was subjected to an arbitrary arrest. They know that they have violated all my rights, individual and constitutional.”

“They wanted to end my life—to make me go crazy. But they failed. I was all those months imprisoned without combing my hair. I didn’t even have the right to a hairbrush or toothbrush.” From this, she demands her release and that of her two comrades from the Regional Coordination of Communal Authorities (CRAC), who have also undertaken hunger strikes, together with a comrade from the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP).